Great Preaching Secrets?

Google provided the following ad on missionThink. Apparently, if you listen to their great preaching secrets, you’ll be a great preacher.  While I am by no means an expert, let me share with you what I think is important in preaching:

1) A good preacher I know (Penny Zettler) gave me great advice.  To paraphrase, she said: "There are no rules to preaching.  Saturate yourself in the bibical text.  Marinade in it.  Use all the imagination and creativity you can, and go for it." In other words, you don’t have to follow the conventional wisdom of what other preachers do or follow how you were taught in Seminary.

2) Be careful that the focus of your preaching and ministry isn’t technique, but an overflow of the Spirit at work within you.  Pray. 

3) Let the Spirit show you what is the most important thing to say to your church, and then say it.  Don’t embellish too much.  Don’t try to raise the level of cool.  Become an expert at communicating what you really want to say, and add other feature later. 

4) Record yourself, and listen to yourself a few days later.  You’ll be able to listen to yourself a bit more objectively.  If you can videotape yourself, that’s even better.

5) Short is better than long.

6) It is better to be faithful than it is to be cute.

These are just a few nuggets.  I’m not what I would call a great preacher…nor am I probably even good yet.  But I think I’m good enough to know that the list I just gave is pretty good advice.

Mark Van Steenwyk is the editor of JesusManifesto.com. He is a Mennonite pastor (Missio Dei in Minneapolis), writer, speaker, and grassroots educator. He lives in South Minneapolis with his wife (Amy), son (Jonas) and some of their friends.

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